4 AM
by Lolitsme2147
Summary: Jess is a pretty tough guy, that is, unless he gets drunk and his "lady-love" is forced to pick him up the night before their wedding. Oh the poetic words that flow out of a drunken man's mouth... AU and OOC [Literati] One-Shot


**A/N: Hey guys, I know, I know, I shouldn't be writing another one-shot especially when I have to finish the other literati story I had literally just started but,, ya know,, I just had this idea pop into my head and I couldn't help but writing this.**

 **Quick background on this: takes place in a world where Rory leaves Logan after the Truncheon incident and there's no revival, but somehow Literati finds their way back to each other here. Anyways, this is pretty AU so don't read if you don't like :))) Uhh what else?**

 **Disclaimer: Oh yeah, I don't own anything. But I do own the plot so don't steal. Seriously, I'll hunt you down or something.**

 **Summary: Jess is a pretty tough guy, that is, unless he gets drunk and his "lady-love" is forced to pick him up the night before their wedding and so begins the mush we never thought Jess Mariano has stored inside of him.**

 **Oh this is pretty fluffy and weirdly OOC for Jess so if you don't like, don't read. I don't appreciate hateful comments unless they're constructive. Thanks again for clicking to read!**

* * *

It's 1 AM when Rory gets a phone call from Chris. Grasping the bed stand where she had left her phone on, she blindly accepts the call and places it to her ear.

A garbled greeting that she hopes sounds like a 'hello', escapes her throat and she's answered by the slightly drunk Chris yelling at Matt to hold Jess before turning his attention back to the person on the phone.

"Chris? Is there a reason you're calling me at one a.m?" She lets out a slight noise of annoyance while shifting up to lean her back against her headboard.

"Yeah, we jus' need you to pick up Jess. He refuses to go home unless his 'lady-love' picks him up." Chris seems to be shushing someone on the other side. Jess, maybe?

Suddenly she's woken out of her stupor of sleep and thoughts of Jess' bachelor party and his 'always-ready-to-get-drunk friends' comes rushing back to mind.

Needless to say, Rory is tired. She really is. The wedding planning has been taking a lot out of her and the constant bickering with her florist isn't doing wonders for her stress either. Balancing a demanding job and an even more demanding florist doesn't help with the fact that she has to go pick up her soon-to-be husband from a bar somewhere in Philadelphia because Matt and Chris _just_ couldn't drive anywhere farther than the 10 mile radius of their shared office.

"Rory? You there?" Chris' voice interrupts her inner monologue and she scrambles out of the bed in search of the nearest slippers.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm on my way. Could you hang onto him for me? Jess tends to get real adventurous when he's drunk. I don't care what you have to do, whether it's chain him to the nearest pipe or all of you having to tackle him, don't let him go anywhere. He's a runner." She cuts the call and grabs the keys from the hanger. With a swift flick of her wrist, the door is slammed shut and locked before Rory makes her way down the stairs.

It's only when she's in the safety and warmth of her car is when she realizes that she hadn't bothered to change out of her night clothes. She's still wearing her favorite bed time pajamas. A combination of Jess' shirt and boxers. Both of which look ridiculously big on her.

But at this point, she couldn't care any less.

She starts up the car and turns on the radio in a feeble attempt of distracting her from the thickening silence and ever-so-scary night. She still hasn't gotten used to living in a big city and it's seemingly indifferent people.

Jess still makes fun of her when it gets dark out and she begins to panic at her office. Not that she would tell him that but like always, he knows her better.

And he knows. When it gets too dark, because she's spent too long editing an article or reading through one of her own, it's then when Jess, the superhero, swiftly makes his way down to her office and decides to take her back home. Her pride however, gets the best of her and she's overwhelmed by the thought that Jess thinks she can't survive the dark without him. He makes a lame attempt at saying he missed her too much and just _needed_ to see her. She knows it's Jess' way of making her feel safe. After all, Jess is Jess.

* * *

It's almost 2 AM when she arrives at the bar that Matt and Chris sent her the details of. She almost parks the car when she realizes what she's wearing (or lack of what she isn't wearing) and how shady of a place this seems. She opts to stay in the car and ring up Chris once more.

"Hey Matt. I'm here. Do you guys need a ride too?" She asks because Rory, being the loving fiancee, has to help out her fiancee's friends too.

"Nah, we're cool. Chris' girlfriend is on her way too. Just take Jess. We'll bring him out." He ends the call with a mumbled sorry and the line clicks off.

Rory waits in the car for two minutes before she sees a stumbling (and quite happy, she may add) Jess, waltzing out of the bar with the biggest smile adorned on his face since she told him she loved him.

Matt and Chris seem to be holding him up from the sides just in case. Jess seems to be waxing lyrical about something from the way his hands move and the wider his smile gets.

She loves his smile. The smile he reserves for only a very small few. It makes his smile all the more precious. His smile, often not seen, can give anyone the same bubbly feeling he seems to be having right now. There's a special smile however. A smile he reserves only for Rory. A smile she thinks looks more like a smirk than a smile.

The corners of his mouth twist up and his teeth is revealed. The smile reaches into his eyes and you can see slight traces of dimples forming into the sides of his cheeks. She wonders how long he had to frown to try to get rid of those. But even then, she can see traces of those adorable dimples.

Jess notices her car mid way through his little speech to Matt and Chris and begins to take off towards her car. He hadn't accounted for the drunkenness however and ends up mushing his face against the passenger door window. He sees Rory and yells a little too excitedly as if he hadn't expected her to come.

"Rory! Hi!" He yells through the window and waves a little bit towards her. Almost as if he hadn't expected her.

His breath comes out in little fogs and plasters the window and Rory chuckles a little bit at the thought of bad boy Jess. Now, she can't seem to even remember that surly teenager. She's just reminded of the amazingly happy fiancee who tends to get a little more than mushy when drunk.

The door opens with a pull and Jess stumbles inside. She's still considerably chuckling when he throws himself inside and slams the door shut before Matt and Chris can even think to come to the car door.

Rory opens the passenger side window and leans against the shared arm rest when Matt and Chris saunter over to it.

"Sorry Rory, he was just so excited when we told him you were picking him up and then he saw you and slipped out of our grasp. Sorry 'bout all this." Matt finishes with a sheepish smile and rubs the back of his hair.

Before she can respond Jess replies for her, effectively cutting her off.

"Sorry, fellas but I'm going home with my lady-love. You know what that means? _You_ don't get to come. Tis' I who will be doing the coming tonight! Because I'm getting marriiiieeed todayyyy!" Jess finishes with a slight howl to his words and Rory asks herself why she decided on getting married to him.

Under any normal circumstances, Rory would feel embarrassed, ashamed even at Jess' crass humor but at this point, she just wants to get home and sleep. She _is_ getting married in less than 12 hours after all. Especially that the guy she's getting married to is sitting right next to her waxing poetic about his wedding and also going to be severely hungover the next morning.

And so, she gives a sheepish smile towards his friends, bids them goodnight, and promises to catch up with them tomorrow at the wedding before speeding off towards the sanctity of their home.

* * *

It's close to 3 AM when the songs switch to a popular love song and she hears Jess singing along to them as loudly as he can without damaging either of their eardrums.

 _'Cuz you'll never be alone_

 _I'll be with you from dusk 'till dawn_

 _I'll be with you from dusk 'till dawn_

 _Baby I'm right hereeee_

Jess continues to sing along before he switches the radio off and turns in his seat to look towards Rory.

"Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"No, like.. I _really_ love you. So much. I love you. I love you. _I_ love you. I _love_ you. I love _you._ Seriously. I love you."

"I know, Jess." She stifles a giggle.

"You know how much I love you?" He asks quite seriously with a scowl teasing the edges of his mouth just in case she says no.

"No, maybe you should refresh me on that."

"Damn right, I should. So listen, the sun is 98 billion light years away right? And that's a lot right? Well I love you even more than _that!_ " He finishes with a slight huff.

At this point, she can't help but letting out a loud bark of laughter and he completely sits sideways on the seat to look at her as if she's the dumb one here.

"What's so funny? You don't think I love you?" He asks, and she can feel his _'anger'_ swelling up and she _knows_ that he's going to do something. She just _knows._

"No, I do remember, I love you too?" She restrains her giggles and decides to use this hilarious story in her vows tomorrow.

"I know you think I don't but just you wait, I'll show you. **I'll show the whole city of Philadelphia just** _ **how much**_ **I love you!** " He finishes and it all comes out so fast and before you know what's happening, he's rolling down the window and sticking his head out of it like some kind of dog.

" **Jess!** What are you doing?" Rory yells in a hushed whisper towards him.

He ignores her and decides to proceed with his ingenious plan.

" **CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, I'D LIKE TO MAKE IT KNOWN THAT UNTIL THE DAY I DIE, I WILL LOVE RORY GILMORE, WHO IS SOON TO BE RORY MARIANO AND I'M SO GLAD THAT MY HOT GIRLFRIEND/FIANCEE IS GOING TO MAKE AN HONEST MAN OUT OF ME. THAT'S RIGHT! RORY GILMORE IS OFF THE MARKET, MEN! SHE'S THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND I LOVE HER-** " He's cut off by Rory grabbing him by the back of his shirt and she proceeds to yank his head back inside the window, all the while trying to avoid an accident. She mutters something about only children and them never learning to share.

She asks herself why she never put the child lock on that side of the door. Jess doesn't seem to care however, just simply repeating the reasons for his love and of course, just _how much he loves her._

Jess continues to ramble on and on about his immense love for her and all she can do is think about their wedding tomorrow.

She can't believe that this time tomorrow she'll be happily married to the one guy she had spent so long fighting her feelings for when he was sitting here right next to her cheerfully babbling about the dogs and/or cats they were going to adopt and the kids they were going to have.

"And I was thinking, since I kind of like cats a little bit more, we can get one cat and one dog. Well, more like I want a fluffy black cat and you can get a dog if you want. I doubt you'll want one though with the kids and all. But you know maybe our love will sustain both." Jess' rambling becomes somewhat nonsensical (as if it had been making sense in the first place) and she can't help but shake her head at the kind of stuff he starts suggesting.

Things like they should be getting a jump start on the baby, and maybe ways on _how_ to.

Ugh, is all she can say for drunk Jess.

* * *

It's 3 AM when she pulls into the parking for their apartment and _still_ Jess is proving his love for her. She thinks nothing of it. Just Jess being Jess.

But it's not until she hears him utter a few sentences when she realizes why he's so hellbent on getting her to realize just how much he loves her.

"I never liked that blond guy. I hated him. You came back to me. For that whole three blissful seconds when you kissed me that night, I thought maybe, just maybe, you and I would actually get our happy ending. But then you told me you loved him. Like I loved you. I still do. I never stopped. I thought if I could pretend loving you was the same as you loving him, you'd love me." At this point Rory is a little confused. Mainly because the ending of his little monologue as she drags him out of the car, doesn't quite seem to make sense. But she's mostly taken aback.

She knew he had felt hurt after that wretched day in Truncheon. And a good time after they had gotten back together, she had tried to create better memories together in that chair. But she knew, somewhere back in her mind that if no matter what were to happen, it would never change that memory he had painfully stored in his mind.

She just assumed with the wedding tomorrow he hadn't been thinking too much about that night.

"Rory. I love you. Please don't go, okay?" He turns sleepy at the last line and she's quite sure it's well past his bedtime. She drapes his arm over her shoulders and together they stumble up the stairs, Jess giving out the occasional chuckle at how 'funny' stairs can be.

Rory unlocks the door with a heavy push, a well-known fact that their door had been slightly heavy and something was wrong with the handle of it. But they had gotten used to it.

Jess makes a dash for the bathroom when it comes into his line of vision and as Rory turns to lock the door, she can hear the guttural sounds of vomiting on the other side. She fills up a glass of water and grabs some aspirin before padding her way softly to the bathroom door.

A knock on the bathroom door reverberates through their apartment and Jess swings the door open. He washes his face and proceeds to begin brushing his teeth before thanking her for the glass of water. She places the pill on the nightstand by their bed.

Satisfied with the results, she slowly makes her way back to the bed and plops down on it, tired and in desperate need of sleep.

Jess clicks off the bathroom light and the quiet creaking of the bathroom door lets her know that he's changed into pajama bottoms and maybe a thin shirt, which although he hasn't been wearing off late due to the high temperatures.

The mattress creaks slightly under his weight as he shift under the blanket and scoots closer into Rory's backside. Her guess on whether or not he's wearing a shirt are answered when she feels the warmth of his chest mold against hers. He shifts her hair onto the pillow before placing a soft kiss on the backside of her neck.

She shifts a little bit closer to him and he places his face into the crook of her neck, relishing the warmth emanating between the two.

* * *

It's 4 AM, when the love of her life whispers a soft line of love and she knows that this, this right here is all she ever needs in her life and all she'll ever want.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Hey guys! Hoped you liked! Drop a review and let me know. Go check out my other stories too. Sorry for not being as active as I'd like to be. But I hoped you liked the one-shot. Might make it a two shot of their wedding but I like how I ended it so I'm not very keen on it. But anyways, like it? Got something to say about it? Drop a review and let me know! :)**


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